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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

Argh...I HATE frickin Linux. I stopped using it 6 years ago because of this crap. Then I installed it on my work machine and it worked great. So I'm like ok, let's install it on my home PC.

I have Redhat 7.1 After I do a workstation install and not configuring a stupid thing (default video (was correct), default everything) it freezes on start up. Everything seems fine, but when it gets to X, it just dies. The black & white dotted screen comes up, but the top and the sides are all screwy and it seems locked up. What I don't understand, is that I used the graphical interface for the install. It's been awhile using Linux, but I tried a few things like CTRL-ALT-Backspace, CTRL-F4, and whatever I could remotely remember. Sorry, I'm really a newbie. Oh yeah, I told it to login graphically and using KDE as my default.

Anyway, so I tried doing the interactive setup thinking I would be able to get a text login. I guess I need to read up on that on how to do that. I was going to try and stop it from using X.

I also tried my boot disk. That was completely useless. It says Loading initrd.img
Boot Failed: Please change disks and press a key to continue

I'm kind of at a loss of what's going on here. I'm thinking that Linux just doesn't like something I have (ie a video card). Here's my setup.

Well apparently I wasn't hitting ctrl-x quick enough on start up. I'm not sure what it's problem was. So I am now in as init 3. However, I still can't get X to work. It's kind of odd. I try Xconfigurator and it keeps on saying Radeon. I want to use standard VGA...and then get the new Radeon drivers. Well I let Xconfigurator do it's thing (gave it another chance) and X still froze up. So I backed up my XF86Config and XF86Config-4 files. Then I copied XF86Config.eg to my /etc/X11 directory and renamed it to XF86Config I was hoping this would get it working for standard VGA at 640x480. So I tried starting X and it complained. It said something about no screens found and complained about some other things. I know that I'm kind of vague, but that's all I remember.

The other thing I noticed was that my original XF86Config file was huge. It was like 17k opposed to the example which is about 1.7k In addition to that, the end of the file had garbage. I'm not sure what that's all about. I know NTFS and Linux doesn't get along, but maybe this could be the problem. The HD I'm using used to be NTFS. When I installed Linux, I deleted the partitions and told it to redo the HD. I would imagine that should have blown out anything NTFS and it shouldn't be a problem. But after I saw the garbage at the end of the file, it kind of bothered me.